Islamabad: Pakistan is currently experiencing the third wave of COVID-19 which is being seen as deadlier than the first two waves, as the country’s positivity rate has jumped close to 8 per cent.
According to the National Command & Operation Centre’s (NCOC) data, Pakistan’s positivity rate spiked up to 7.8 per cent on Thursday and during the past 24 hours, about 3,495 new COVID-19 cases were reported across the country.
Pakistan’s total number of cases after the fresh entries has jumped to 615,810 while 61 deaths in the last twenty-four hours have taken the death toll to 13,717.
Spike in cases
Moreover, the number of active coronavirus patients in the country stands at 24,59 while with 1,634 recoveries in the last twenty-four hours the country’s total recoveries as of Thursday were 577,501.
Seeing the spike in positivity, Pakistan has also increased its daily tests and according to the NCOC, 44,377 tests were conducted during the last twenty-four hours to assess the current situation of the virus.
Minister for Planning & Development Asad Umar who is also chairman of the NCOC in a tweet Thursday warned the new strain was spreading faster and was “more deadly.”
Asad Umar who earlier in the day chaired a meeting of the NCOC said there was a critical increase in hospitals’ daily admission and people in critical care. “If SOPs compliance doesn’t improve we will be forced to place stronger restrictions on activities.
In the NCOC meeting the provincial administrations have been asked to take immediate actions for strict implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curb the spread of the virus.
Serious concerns were expressed on the general disregard of SOPs by the masses.
Mass violations of SOPs, including not wearing face masks and disregarding social distancing, are widely reported, the NCOC forum said later in a statement.
Federal capital on Thursday reported an all-time high number of single-day tally of coronavirus cases, 538, during the current year.
The city’s District Health Office in the wake of this alarming spike in cases has changed its strategy, dividing the city into three zones– Red, Orange and Green. These zones are created for areas to monitor virus spread. The Red Zone is for highly-affected areas, the Orange and Green zones are for areas with intermediate and low number of cases.
According to the Punjab Health Department, the province was worst hit by COVID-19 and the infection rate in Punjab was 10.62 per cent. The province in the last twenty-four hours reported 1,824 new cases, while 43 persons passed away in the same period.
Complete lockdown
Besides, 980 cases were also recovered according to the data of the health department. The total numbers of cases in the province stand at 191,182 while the death toll in the province has reached 5,896 since the outbreak of the virus.
Sindh is however ahead of Punjab with 262,207 confirmed cases of virus and 4,469 deaths.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Thursday has hinted at imposing complete lockdown across the province in the wake of increasing coronavirus cases. The province has reported 77,443 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,188 deaths so far.
Special Assistant to the KP Chief Minister on Information Kamran Bangash said that the third wave of COVID-19 is extremely dangerous. The authorities will take strict decisions if cases in KP continue to surge, he said.
The special assistant said that the schools in nine districts have already been closed. He further urged the locals to follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) to prevent the spread of the virus.
Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood on Thursday posted a picture in which he could be seen receiving COVID-19 vaccine first jabs. The minister announced “Got my Covid-19 vaccination today at the Polyclinic in Islamabad.”
